For the better part of 12 months, Willow & Blake have been entertaining and edifying followers with their sharp and irreverent online content curation and interest-driven editorials.  However, what began as a labour of love has slowly transformed into a profitable copy and editorial firm. SMK looks at how these journalism, marketing and communications professionals used social media to unwittingly launch an enviable business.

Scratching a creative itch

When Willow & Blake’s founders met in university, they united over similar interests and a love for writing. Time would show they also shared talent: Jess Hatzis would become head of publicity at 360 Agency, Erika Geraerts worked copy and social media at Cassette and Bree Johnson joined Broadsheet as editorial assistant (a position she still maintains). However, even as they gained valuable experience, all three found themselves itching for more creative freedom.

“I think that we were all getting a bit tired of the nine-to-five,” says Geraerts. “We just wanted to be able to do our own thing and push the ideas that we had. We wanted to write about interesting people and reveal their personal sides. That’s where we developed our style and our tone of voice.”

Attractive social skills

W&B’s attitude toward self-promotion was informed by their dismay at common brand approaches to social media.  “We saw so many businesses were going about Facebook the wrong way,” says Geraerts. “Just promoting their business or their product, sort of yelling at consumers ‘buy this, buy this,’ and missing the whole point that they should be having a conversation with their audience.  We thought, let’s just make a Facebook page and put up all these funny images, do the stuff we always do, and we’ll see the attention that it gets.”

Get attention it did. By paying careful attention to the kind of content their audience wanted, W&B’s Facebook postings quickly left the confines of their immediate network to attract likes and comments from as far afield as Russia. They let W&B grow organically with an emphasis on sharing and nurturing, rather than spruiking their own work. “We had a page for about six months before we even put one of our own articles up,” admits Geraerts.

By establishing a solid (and growing) online social base first via Facebook, Willow & Blake had a ready-made audience to consume the editorial passion projects they were cooking up for www.willowandblake.com. As more people realised their voice more than matched their keen eye for content curation, W&B began receiving unexpected commercial approaches.

“People wanted us to apply [our voice] to their corporate writing,” says Geraerts. “It started off as a friend-of-a-friend thing—‘can you do a media release for us?’ or ‘can you write our website copy?’ and it kind of just grew from there. The more people we worked with would just refer us to other people. It was amazing.”

An authentic and consistent approach

It’s worth noting that even as W&B gathered more commercial interest in their work, they never shied away from the idiosyncratic (and occasionally risqué) style that got them were they were.

“We're adamant that we maintain the brand image we started off with,” says Geraerts. “It's a direct reflection of our personalities and we see ourselves as very lucky to have gotten away with it thus far. Our corporate clients know that the proof is in the pudding that we dish out.”

That W&B’s success is based on a bold, authentic and consistent approach is an insight worth keeping in mind.

“Social media can often be what gets a business over the line,” says Geraerts. “It reflects that they are 'in the know', constantly communicating with their audience; listening, not just selling; and that they are human, not just a robot or webpage with words and pretty pictures. “

With a growing reputation and a client list that already includes the likes of Jelly Beans and Melbourne Central, Willow & Blake’s approach seems well worth emulating.